Avon Wesleyan Church

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Pastor Profile

AVON WESLEYAN CHURCH – LEAD PASTOR PROFILE

Personal Qualities

1. A committed and mature follower of Jesus Christ with a consistent and deep life of prayer and time in God’s Word that is continuously growing and developing.
2. Demonstrates a personal passion and commitment for evangelism, outreach, and discipleship with evidence in their personal life.
3. If married, must be deeply committed to family and maintain healthy boundaries on behalf of the family.
4. If unmarried, live a virtuous life according to God’s biblical plan.
5. Values people and relationships, a compassionate person.
6. Someone who lives out their theology in daily life.

Professional Qualities

1. Alignment with Wesleyan theology.
2. Has a sound theological education and is ordained in the Wesleyan Church or an acceptable denomination as approved by the Penn-York District Superintendent.
3. Excellent record of leadership success in the church, preferably as a Lead Pastor.
4. Strongly recommend the candidate has served a minimum of 3-5 years in a local church and has been responsible for overseeing multiple staff positions and volunteer ministry leaders.

Pastoral Qualities and Roles

1. Enthusiastic Alignment with the Avon Wesleyan Church’s Mission and Core Value. It is essential that the pastor is excited and in alignment with the stated Mission of the Avon Wesleyan Church to “Invite everyone into a Connected Life with Christ.”  Must work to clearly establish the church's Vision in the minds of the congregation and staff.  The pastor must also whole-heartedly believe in, and lead in, the practice of the stated core values in support of the Vision and Mission, ensuring balance in the key areas of worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism.

2. Effective Preacher/Teacher. Must fully embrace the Bible as the Word of God.  The pastor should be able to clearly and passionately communicate biblical truth through sermons that connect with believers and non-believers.  Must be committed to staying culturally relevant while remaining biblically true.

3. People Person: relates intentionally to people. It is important that the pastor is effective at interacting with people and has a strong EQ.  (Note: Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as emotional quotient or EQ) is the ability to positively understand, use, and manage your own emotions to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict.) The pastor should clearly seek to build and invest in relationships, especially with the people the pastor is responsible for leading, including the staff, the board, and volunteer ministry leaders.  While it is important for the pastor to accomplish many tasks, the pastor should be a “people first” person and would need to have a compassionate, shepherd’s heart.

4. Reliable: faithful to commitments. The church leadership, in addition to the congregation as a whole, views the pastor as faithful to commitments and decisions.  The pastor should be someone who can be relied upon to have deep integrity.

5. Community Engagement. This person will be a relational leader who thrives in partnership development and intentional community engagement. They will have a natural gift for networking and communicating the vision of the church to the community as well as investing in, and building partnerships with, local churches, businesses, and local government. They will be Kingdom-oriented and value unity over uniformity.

6. Competent in Facing Challenges and Conflict. The pastor should be faithful, dependable, and even-keeled in challenging times.  They should be able to lead a church into healing and full health where needed.  Tough conversations, including addressing conflict, should be managed in a timely manner with grace and kindness, speaking the truth in love.

7. Demonstrates Dependence on the Holy Spirit. The pastor must demonstrate an eagerness to invite the Holy Spirit to be released in great power and demonstrate an eagerness to depend on the leadership of the Holy Spirit in leading the ministry of the church.

Leadership Qualities and Roles

1. Leader. The Pastor has demonstrated strong organizational leadership skills. This is evidenced by leading and equipping the board, guiding the staff, overseeing church finances, and casting vision for the church. The pastor is also committed to leadership development in others.
2. Staff Leadership. Must have experience effectively leading a multi-person staff.  This will be demonstrated by the ability to direct staff, form a cohesive team, empower staff in the execution of their responsibilities, and guide staff to develop their personal areas of giftedness. Considerable effort should be made to invest in the staff through listening, encouragement, prayer, and mentoring to strengthen them as they minister directly to the congregation.
3. Consensus Building: A leader who will form, equip, and lead teams of leaders. The pastor will equip the staff, the board, other leaders in the church, and the congregation in a collaborative spirit.  The pastor should be able to lead assertively and yet demonstrate flexibility within reasonable boundaries to achieve “ownership” from the teams in an effort to achieve common goals.
4. Effective Communicator: Communicates in a compelling manner. The pastor must be able to communicate clearly and passionately, both written and verbally, to large and small audiences.  Communication should be timely and informative.  Feedback should be solicited regularly so communications can be corrected or repeated as needed. Communication with the staff, the leadership of the church, and the congregation concerning Vision and future direction should be motivating so that people want to be part of where the church is going.
5. Follow Through:  Carrying tasks to completion. Working closely with the Administrative Assistant, the Lead Pastor must ensure that follow-through happens on decisions, promises, and commitments that are made.  It is not expected that the pastor personally carries those tasks to completion, but it is necessary that the pastor recognizes the need for follow-through and oversees the staff and church leaders in an efficient manner.

6. Courageously Opportunistic. The pastor must be willing to try new and innovative things, take obedient risks, test new waters, and go after the mission in creative and yet responsible ways.  This should be done in the context of being a consensus-building leader and also as a networker with peers outside the church to leverage the collective wisdom of others facing similar opportunities. All these tools should be used to fuel the growth strategy of the church.

7. Intergenerational Ministry. The pastor must be committed to reaching multiple generations and finding ways to reach out to all ages, utilizing the gifts, skills, and passions of the staff and lay leadership.

8. A Multi-Tasker. Is able to oversee multiple ministries and delegate responsibilities when/where needed and have the organizational skills to keep this running smoothly.

Strengths Summary

The Lead Pastor should excel in the following areas:

• Teaching/Preaching/Communication
• Theological/Biblical understanding and application – in keeping with the Wesleyan Church
• Worship service planning collaboration
• Leadership development and shepherding of the staff, board, and volunteers
• Vision casting and refining
• Collaborative work style
• Delegation, support, and encouragement
• Relational/relatability
•  A Shepherd’s heart for the congregation and community